Sergio ChozascE3c - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes · Plant Biology
Sergio Chozas
Post-Doc Researcher
About
24
Publications
3,416
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91
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am a biologist with broad interests in Plant community ecology, in particular the flora of Mediterranean semiarid environments, the role of Small Natural Features in preserving biodiversity in man-managed landscapes and the use of citizen science to characterize plant communities and promote Botany. I currently work on several questions of plant community dynamics and physiology at cE3c.
Publications
Publications (24)
Biodiversity is declining due to the impact of human activities. However, public awareness of the biodiversity crisis is low, particularly for plants, creating a barrier to engage with conservation programs. In this perspective, we show how citizen science and mobile apps can be used as educational tools to raise awareness about plant biodiversity...
Species' environmental requirements and large‐scale spatial and evolutionary processes determine the structure and composition of local communities. However, ecological interactions also have major effects on community assembly at landscape and local scales. We evaluate whether two xerophytic shrub communities occurring in SW Portugal follow constr...
Eucalyptus globulus Labill. is one of the most widely planted hardwood species worldwide. This species occupies a quarter of the country's forested area in Portugal, so there is a growing concern about its post-fire dispersal. Although it is generally recognised that fire promotes E. globulus natural regeneration and that precipitation and topograp...
Aim: Species’ environmental requirements and large-scale spatial and evolutionary processes are known to determine the structure and composition of local communities. However, ecological interactions and historical processes also have major effects on community assembly at landscape and local scales. In this work we evaluate whether two xerophytic...
Aims
The Iberian oak wood-pastures are unique agroforestry systems supporting high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Small rocky outcrops are geological features commonly found in these systems and constitute biodiversity reservoirs, protecting sensitive species from grazing and farming activities. We aimed to assess the relevance of i...
The pinewood nematode (PWN), Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, responsible for the pine wilt disease (PWD), is a major threat to pine forests worldwide. Since forest mortality due to PWN might be exacerbated by climate, the concerns regarding PWD in the Mediterranean region are further emphasized by the projected scenarios of more drought events and high...
Montados are oak wood-pastures occupying 11% of the Portuguese territory. This agroforestry system has been traditionally used for animal husbandry, agricultural, and forestry purposes. Present day Montados are threatened by land use changes, either intensification or abandonment, and climate global warming that has fostered parasitic plagues and e...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
In a context of growing demands for wood and wood derived products, plantations of exotic tree species have globally increased. Fast growth and high productivity made Eucalyptus one of the most successful tree genus around the world. Nevertheless, this genus is often associated with negative ecological impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function...
![Beta diversity components [βsim (a, b) and βnes (c, d)] of Palmari...](publication/349211490/figure/fig4/AS:11431281115640801@1675047705928/Beta-diversity-components-bsim-a-b-and-bnes-c-d-of-Palmari-Brazil-successional_Q320.jpg)
Species diversity varies in space and time. Temporal changes in the structure and dynamics of communities can occur at different scales. We investigated the temporal changes of dung beetle assemblages in the Amazonian region along seasons, years, and successional stages. We evaluated if assemblage structure changes between temporal scales and wheth...
Lista vermelha da flora vascular de Portugal Continental. Os autores apresentados foram os autores das fichas que deram origem ao livro
Aims
In Mediterranean countries, traditional salt exploitation has been practiced over centuries. However, there is a progressive reduction of active saltworks, causing changes in the adjacent halophytic communities and, ultimately, the invasion by opportunistic plant species. Assessing the impact of land‐use change is key to understand and protect...
Predicted droughts and anthropogenic water use will increase groundwater lowering rates and intensify groundwater limitation, particularly for Mediterranean semi‐arid ecosystems. These hydrological changes may be expected to elicit differential functional responses of vegetation either belowground or aboveground. Yet, our ability to predict the imp...
To conciliate the individualistic and holistic paradigms dominating community ecology, I analysed the main factors driving the distribution of xerophytic shrub communities at different scales. I found that the patchy distribution of xerophytic shrubs in southwestern Portugal mainly responds to both local (i.e., soil organic matter) and regional (i....
Background: Understanding the processes that determine community assembly and their dynamics is a central issue in ecology. The analysis of functional diversity can improve our understanding of these dynamics by identifying community assembly processes.
Aims: We studied the effect of environment–community co-variations on both functional diversity...
Background and Aims The geographical distributions of species are constrained by their ecological requirements. The aim of this work was to analyse the effects of environmental conditions, historical events and biogeographical constraints on the diversification of the three species of the western Mediterranean shrub genus Stauracanthus, which have...
Species populations change in space and time affecting community structure. Such changes are mainly due to either species loss or non-random species replacement, that generate two differential patterns: nestedness and turnover, respectively. Here, we evaluate the changes in the structure of dung beetles assemblages (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) over s...
Dune plant assemblages are affected by severe conditions, which
makes them excellent models for studying the effects of species interactions
and environmental conditions on community structure. We evaluate the
relationship between the structure of dune communities, local environmental
conditions and the suitability of climatic conditions for their...
Aims
The aim of this study was to analyse the main drivers of compositional and distributional changes of xerophytic shrub communities at different spatial scales. We also assess whether the ecological dynamics of these communities comply with the Clementsian and/or Gleasonian paradigms of community assembly.
Methods
We study the influence of envir...
Linaria ricardoi is an endangered plant species, endemic to South Portugal. Here is explained the monitoring methodology and some results obatined through the Monitoring program ensured by EDIA, S.A.
Armeria rouyana Daveau is an endemic plant species from SW Portugal, occurring in open pinewoods of inland dunes. This species tends to be more frequent in disturbed forest gaps of clearing but, despite being a priority species under the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), the information available concerning its ecology and distribution is still scarc...
Questions
Question (1)
I am trying to find this information, but I only find the values for the Iberian Peninsula (over 4.5 million ha).
Than you in advance,
Sergio
Projects
Projects (6)
The main objective of ForCe is to understand if Forest Certification can foster forestry plantation’s functional and conservation role for vertebrates, and thus its environmental sustainability.
Our main goal is enhancing sustainability in the FCUL campus (Lisbon University). To achive this objective i) we will apply the concept of sustainability in FCUL's green spaces and ii) characterize and monitor FCUL biodiversity over time, involving both the Ciências community and the citizens who live and work in the area.
Biodiversity monitoring will be performed using classic biodiversity surveys, updated monitoring equpment and citizen science platform Biodiversity4all (iNaturalist)
https://www.biodiversity4all.org/projects/biodiversidade-ciencias
This project focuses on the integration of existing biodiversity data aiming to provide services to the administration, the scientific community and society. Additionally, PORBIOTA aims to develop monitoring programs and global indicators capable of detecting and analyzing trends in biodiversity.
